“But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for… when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.” Romans 2:5

Everyone may have the right to their own opinions. But at the end of the day only God’s opinion of us matters. Sinful pride inflates the opinion of ourselves to become a reality, but the only true reality is God’s opinion of us. So how will God judge us when we finally meet Him face to face?

Firstly, God’s judges based on strict and stringent standards. We tend to judge ourselves through rose-tinted glasses, like a child in an amusement park gazing at a distorted mirror. We appear disproportionately more charming, taller or stronger than we are in reality. The problem is that our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. (Jer. 17:9) Through our own sinful lenses, we deceive ourselves. But God’s judges us according to the Holiest standards of truth, to the reality of who we really are and not what we pretend to be. Whatever façade of moral or religious behaviour we think shields our broken condition, God’s gaze penetrates. Before Him nothing is hidden and all things are exposed for what they truly are. (Heb. 4:13)

Secondly, God suspends His judgment for a season. We all desire wrongs to be right and appreciate the need for justice. Why then does God not punish sinners in his wrath today? God’s delay of justice is not His denial of justice. God never misses an appointment and he will keep the one he has reserved for judging the world. (Heb. 9:27) God holds back his judgment only because of his kindness, tolerance, and patience. (Rom 2:4) From the riches of His goodness, God gives mankind the chance today to respond to Him. God’s judgment will certainly arrive, and when it does all wrong things will be set right.

May we not take God’s patience for granted. We have no right to live another second apart from His goodness. As we see that fast-approaching final day arriving, we need a readiness to meet God face to face. And our only hope is to be covered in the blood of the lamb, Jesus Christ.